Restaging the End of Another War

By Les Blough
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23423.shtml

November 4, 2004 - "How will we get out of this, another dirty, Godless war, fought in the service of Global Corporatism? What will the "Exit Strategy" from this mess look like -when it is all over? The images of U.S. soldiers fleeing Vietnam have been burned into our minds for 30+ years with U.S. helicopters pushed off the sterns of ships, decades of suffering by Vietnam Veterans with disabilities, their broken families, the never-ending searches for MIAs and a national guilt that will haunt us for years to come. To these memories, the Wars on Afghanistan and Iraq will carry the additional 'baggage' of the effects of depleted uranium on Afghan and Iraqi children and the loss of the culture to which all human beings owe their genesis. What images will be burned into our minds 30 years hence? Indeed, what images of us will be carried into history for those looking back?"
- Les Blough, Editor At What Price The Bush Wars

The clouds of deceit at the beginning and during a war cannot be compared with the size and numbers of the lies that surround the end of a war. But the lies at the end of the war are all dissolved by one simple truth.

All wars end with the defeat and surrender of one side or the other

"Discussions in Washington", conducted by Amy Goodman about withdrawal from Iraq covers an interview with Fmr. Senator George McGovern, Congressman Dennis Kucinich and AEI's Joshua Muravchik. It reminds us of two scenarios during the last days before the fall of the U.S. military in Vietnam:

1. The first scene is one of Henry Kissinger (unbelieveably now advising George Walker Bush) in the "Paris Peace Talks" (sic)

Back then we were subjected to daily corporate media coverage of Kissinger and his gibberish about only leaving Vietnam after achieving "Peace with Honor". While he mouthed Peace with Honor - he and his cohorts were desperately trying to find ways to prevent what finally happened to their "exit strategy". Kissinger and company spoke about "peace with honor" as though they were still in a position to negotiate with the Vietnamese. It was a propaganda ploy, buying time while they sought to save face before the Vietnamese military literally ran them out. Now we see the shell game being played by both - the Democrats and Republicans:

- Blaming the puppet government they installed for "not doing enough to establish order".
- Trying to convince the world that they are trying to save Iraq from a civil war (i.e. to "save Iraqis from Iraqis")
- To prevent a base for world terrorism from being established in Iraq.
- To prevent Iraq from falling under the control of Iran and Syria.

Meanwhile, as early as March 17, 2006 the U.S. government has been trying to negotiate with Iran - the same Iran condemned by George W. Bush as a member of the "Axis of Evil" - for their help in getting the U.S. out of Iraq. They are "negotiating" with Iran as though they had a power base from which to negotiate. They have none.

The last great ploy to rescue the U.S. government from itself in Iraq - at the expense of billions of U.S. tax dollars - can be seen in the 2006 midterm elections with "Democrats to the Rescue". We hear Sen. Carl Levin, Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, threatening the Iraq "government" with U.S. troop withdrawal for their "not taking responsibility" for the security of Iraq. We hear him fabricating the lie that instead of destroying Iraq, the U.S. government gave Iraqis an opportunity to have better lives:

"America has given the Iraqi people the opportunity to build a new nation at the cost of nearly 3,000 American lives and over twenty thousand wounded. But the American people do not want our valiant troops to get caught in a crossfire between Iraqis if they insist on squandering that opportunity through civil war and sectarian strife."

We hear Levin blame Iraq's US-installed puppet government for not ending "sectarian violence":

"We were momentarily hopeful when the Iraqi leaders signed a four point agreement on October 2nd to end the sectarian violence. That turned out to be another false hope."

We hear him blaming the Iraqis for not "putting their political house in order". We hear Democrat Senator Carl Levin blaming the victim for U.S. atrocities and abrogate all responsibility for U.S. war crimes in Iraq:

"We should put the responsibility for Iraq’s future squarely where it belongs – on the Iraqis. We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves."

"We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves" ... The transparency of that statement is so clear that even the casual, "apolitical" reader sees through it like a window pane. This is beyond a cynical lie. This is also psychological projection of the guilt for crimes against humanity, committed by the U.S. government - being projected upon their hirelings.

We should not be surprised at Levin's preposterous claims. On June 15, 2006 he simply argued in the U.S. Senate for the U.S. to begin to withdraw troops from Iraq by the end of 2006 with no timetable for complete withdrawal. Joe Lieberman, another Democrat argued against Levin's resolution, warning that it would result in “the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 being able to claim victory in Iraq and going on, emboldened, to attack us again here at home.” Stephen Zunes (Foreign Policy in Focus) observes that Lieberman failed to mention that al-Qaida found recruitment opportunities inside Iraq only after the U.S. invasion. Zunes also reported,

"Lieberman was joined by Democrats Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. All but one Republican senator opposed Levin's resolution."

and astutely observed ...

"Resolutions like Kerry's and Levin's enable Democratic senators to have it both ways: to go on record opposing the war while continuing to fund it."

The Senate passed a $50 Billion funding bill for the war in Iraq with a 97-0 vote for fiscal year 2006. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments anticipated $94 billion in 2006 and as of April of this year, the U.S. government was spending about $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this year, The Guardian (UK) reported the findings of a Nobel prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert: the actual cost of the US war in Iraq will be somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion (£1.1 trillion), up to 10 times more than previously thought.

In fact, not a single U.S. senator, neither Republican nor Democrat, has voted against funding the war and occupation of Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

2. The second scene in the last days of the U.S. occupations of Vietnam and Iraq are seen in the words of George McGovern, excerpted from the interview that follows:

"We’re not advocating a mad dash to the border, not a stampede or what the critics call “cut and run.” We’re advocating an orderly withdrawal, not the kind of forced withdrawal that took place in Vietnam so many years ago, where we saw the TV pictures of our last survivors there being airlifted off the roof of the embassy."

Even old George McGovern is doing his best to try to save the face (and the ass) of the U.S. government as it desperately attempts to turn reality into fantasy. As in the last days of Vietnam, the U.S. government is acting as though they still hold some sort of bargaining power in their flight from the hell they created in Iraq.

The bottom line is this:

If the U.S. does not retreat from Iraq immediately, those old images at the end of the Vietnam war will be restaged in the very near future: images like helicopters being pushed off the sterns of ships; the "Green Zone" overrun by the Iraqi resistance; U.S./British occupation-collaborators clamoring for rescue by their paid masters and U.S. troops attacked while in retreat - just as George Herbert Walker Bush ordered the slaughter of Iraqi soldiers as they retreated under aerial bombing in his 1991 invasion of the country.

The end-of-war deceptions now manufactured in Washington under the cover of the cover of the Democratic Party and promulgated by the corporate media are transparent.

Withdrawal" is no longer an option. The U.S. military has been defeated and is now being run out of Iraq under fire.